Vietnam Football Federation (VFF) chairman Nguyen Trong Hy has rejected criticisms of his agency’s failures in the last seasons after average match attendance keeps falling while the volume and frequency of allegations of corruption and match fixing move in the opposite direction.
He also dismissed complaints by clubs owners that the quality of competition at the topflight V-League has deteriorated due to the misconduct of the referees.
“I don’t think our fans have turned their backs on Vietnamese football due to corrupt refereeing. I still see fans turn out in large numbers at stadiums in Hai Phong, Pleiku and Ninh Binh in the last season,” Hy insisted.
Yet, figures released by the VFF on its official website www.vff.org.vn show that average attendance per match at V-League has decreased steadily in the three recent seasons – from 10,326 in 2009, to 8,297 in 2010 and 7,395 in 2011.
Hy only admitted to low attendance on Hang Day Stadium in Hanoi, but argued that “it has remained low there for many years. It’s nothing new.”
Tran Le Thai, chief of football fan’s association of Dong Tam Long An FC, denounced the comments and described them as pathetic efforts “to evade responsibility”.
“Vietnamese fans have stayed away from matches at the top two leagues in Vietnam, V-League and First Division, in recent seasons – an inevitable result of both technical and intentional faults by corrupt referees and the poor spirit of sportsmanship and lack of professionalism on the part of the players,” Thai told Tuoi Tre.
“Fans are not children who come to the stadium just to witness you, referees, cheat or play act.”
Tran Song Hai, vice chairman of Vietnam Fan’s Association, added Hy was right to say fans do not turn their backs on Vietnamese football.
“We only turn away from the VFF for their cover-up and poor management that fails to stop the corruption from rising for many last years,” Hai referred to the comments by the VFF chief.
“I don’t know what the VFF has done but our association has faced increasing difficulties in calling upon more fans to join us. Officially, our association now has only 40 fans left,” Hai added.
The VFF chairman tried to defend the body’s integrity by saying, “I admit some referees intentionally favored some teams in exchange for money but the VFF suspended them all.”
Last month, the VFF announced a suspension penalty for a whole season 2011-12 against referees Tran Cong Trong and Nguyen Van Quyet for their misconduct, but many clubs have demanded a permanent suspension.
“Hundreds of games are held in the top leagues in Vietnam in a season. Don’t just seize upon a few errors like that to conclude the quality of Vietnamese football is going down hill. We should have a multilateral assessment before making the judgment,” Hy declared.
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